The composition of teams in the World Cup suggests that modern national identity cannot be easily disentangled from colonialism, empire and migration. (more…)
Category: Immigration
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What the Socceroos taught us about belonging
The World Cup has shown Australia that our national identity is about diversity not uniformity. (more…)
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The new geography of migration is reshaping economic success
The world’s geography of migration is changing, and with it our understanding of economic development, national success and the role of public policy. (more…)
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Government is contorting itself on overseas students
High student visa refusal rates and extreme fee increases are blunt, haphazard tools for cutting net migration. Australia needs a long-term migration plan it can explain and defend. (more…)
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Migration is falling, but the politics keeps getting hotter
Net overseas migration is falling, but public concern is rising. Once migration is framed as a crisis, lower numbers alone will not defeat the politics built on fear. (more…)
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Who among us wasn’t once a newcomer?
Every Australian family was once the newcomer; some arrived generations ago, others arrived last week. Yet, every generation seems to forget that fact just in time to fear the next one. (more…)
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The World Cup asks what we mean by “we” – Message from the (acting) Editor
The World Cup is compromised, commercialised and often grotesque – but it can still show us something true about belonging, about multicultural Australia and the complexity of loving something, while refusing to look away from its failures. (more…)
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Football shows how belonging is built
The world game’s global appeal lies in its power to create belonging, shared experience and everyday social cohesion across cultures, reminding diverse societies that connection is built not only through policy, but through common stories.
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Where ‘we’ begins: the World Cup and multicultural Australia
The World Cup offers a simple answer to a complicated political debate: a nation is strongest when people with different pasts choose the same future. (more…)
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Living well together despite our differences
A diverse nation is held together not by embracing monoculture but by building familiarity and then trust. (more…)
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When Hanson starts fishing in multicultural waters
Pauline Hanson’s politics is finding new resonance because it turns real pressures over housing, services, tax and insecurity into a familiar politics of exclusion, offering some migrant-background voters the dangerous comfort of a place near the gate. (more…)
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Once refugees, now part of Australia’s story
Fifty years after the end of the Vietnam War, Vietnamese Australians are marking survival, settlement and contribution with a world-first museum in Melbourne dedicated to the refugee journeys that helped reshape multicultural Australia.
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Immigration debate needs facts, not inflated numbers
The latest ABS net migration figures expose the misuse of Net Permanent and Long-term movement data by media outlets and anti-immigration campaigners seeking to inflate claims about Australia’s migration intake. (more…)
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Stateless people need protection, not removal to Nauru
As the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee prepares to report tomorrow, Australia’s latest Nauru arrangement should be terminated because it deflects obligations to refugees and leaves stateless people facing prolonged legal limbo without durable protection.
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What the Socceroos teach us about belonging
The Socceroos’ success is more than a sporting story: it is a reminder that the children of migrants and refugees are not outsiders to Australia’s future, but part of the national story itself. (more…)
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Refugee Week should be more than celebration
Each June, Australians gather to celebrate Refugee Week and honour those who have found safety. It must not overlook those who remain trapped in suffering. (more…)
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Australia fixed one honours gap. Is another being overlooked?
Australia has improved women’s representation in the honours system, but culturally and linguistically diverse communities, particularly CALD women, remain under-recognised despite their central role in social cohesion and community life.
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Belonging without assimilation: lessons from Prophet Muhammad’s life
Social cohesion is not built by erasing difference. As was demonstrated 1,400 years ago in the city of Medina, it is built by creating trust, justice and shared purpose across difference. (more…)
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Food heritage as part of the migrant experience
A study of diverse Chinese food heritages among Chinese–Australians gives insights into migrant adaptation, acculturation and wellbeing. (more…)
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High Court strikes down Commonwealth on long-detained refugees
The High Court’s latest ruling on false imprisonment exposes the legal, financial and human consequences of Australia’s punitive immigration detention system, and the political refusal to abandon cruelty as policy. (more…)
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An open letter to the Minister for Home Affairs – Australia’s obligations to Palestinians must reach the visa system
In an open letter to the Minister for Home Affairs, Meg Schwarz argues that Australia’s obligations to Palestinians must be reflected not only in foreign policy statements, but in the practical systems that shape access to visas, scholarships and education. (more…)
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The students we aren’t seeing
Displaced Palestinians are seeking ways to continue their education. These aspirations need to be part of the screening process, which has become too focussed on risk. (more…)
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Tensions in Australia’s migration system: a missed opportunity for the Coalition
The Liberal Party has missed an opportunity to design a sophisticated migration policy that incorporates demand for labour, housing, infrastructure and energy. (more…)
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Understanding counters fear – let’s learn more about Australia’s diversity
A recent panel discussing multiculturalism addressed both the issues facing the policy and its positive artistic and cultural contributions. (more…)
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Angus Taylor may have just created half a million new Labor voters
The Coalition’s plan to strip welfare access from non-citizens could accelerate a surge in citizenship and voter enrolment across migrant-heavy suburban seats critical to the Liberal Party’s electoral future. (more…)
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A decade of dog-whistles and a decade of lost voters
The Coalition’s path back to government runs through roughly 25 seats. The overwhelming majority of them sit in greater Sydney and greater Melbourne where the combined Indian and Chinese population is already large and still growing fast. These diaspora hear the Coalition talk about out-of-control migration and vote accordingly.
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Virtues, not values: Angus Taylor’s poorly-designed public policy
Debates over migration policy risk confusing personal values with the shared civic virtues that underpin citizenship in a liberal democracy. (more…)
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Non-discrimination is a core Australian value. We must defend it
Policies which link migration to “values” undermine a fundamental principle of Australia’s immigration system – fairness without discrimination.
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On immigration, we’ve heard this before – and we were wrong then too
Warnings about immigration echo almost word for word the fears once directed at post-war arrivals – fears history has already discredited. (more…)
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Duniam contradicts Taylor on Coalition immigration policy
Recent comments from Coalition Shadow Immigration Spokesperson Jonno Duniam expose inconsistencies in the party’s immigration policy, raising questions about feasibility, cost, and intent. (more…)